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Communication

By Susan de la Vergne
Scenario 1) Mark, a software engineer in Silicon Valley, disliked his boss. “If only I worked for Ekan instead of Sean. Sean argues with me all the time. It’s like he doesn’t think I know what I’m doing.” So Mark manages to get transferred to Ekan, who has a reputation as a hands-off, high energy manager. But after Mark makes the move, he finds out Ekan has a short fuse, gets furious and comes unglued when a sev 1 problem hits the team, as it often does.

By Chris Sheesley
Anyone motivated to read this article already knows active listening skills through exposure to it in training and books. Yet, if you’re like most people, you find it strangely distasteful to be either the giver or receiver of active listening technique.

By Susan de la Vergne
You’re in the airport, about to board a five-hour flight across country. You stop at the paperback stand, looking for something to read. “I’d like to find something kinda boring, something formulaic, written using a template,” you say to yourself. “I’m looking for something that’s very predictable, no surprises, and the writer should use a lot of boilerplate language.

By Gary Hinkle
People in my workshops often end up confessing that they know they’re “terrible communicators.” They say they know it’s important to listen openly, write clearly, and present well but that they don’t do it well and never have.

By Susan de la Vergne
Technical presentations are fabulous examples of public speaking! Engineering and tech presenters are funny, concise, and engaging. Most of them can’t wait to grab a microphone, fire up their succinct, well-designed PowerPoint slides and launch into an hour or two of riveting information transfer!

By Susan de la Vergne
Bullet lists on slides are nothing more than the presenter’s speaker notes. That’s it; that’s all they are! The words, ideas, details, facts that the presenter is standing there saying are right there, verbatim, on the screen.

By Susan de la Vergne
First of all, is business boring? Sure, sometimes—dull meetings, drab assignments. But you also get hot assignments. You’ve also been to meetings where breakthroughs occurred or fights broke out. You’ve awakened in the middle of the night thinking about a work problem you can’t solve. You’ve reveled in the excitement of discovery.